JAPAN, THE US AND CHINA

NO FREE HAND GIVEN TO JAPANESE HAWK BY US

Ching Cheong

The China Post, March 3, 2013

BEIJING - Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has failed to get a blank check from his American ally to underwrite his hawkish policy over the disputed Senkaku (Diaoyu to the Chinese) islands.

At the joint press briefing during Abe's visit to Washington last week, U.S. President Barack Obama did not mention China or the disputed islands at all. What Japan wanted most from him — to openly reiterate that the islands fell within Japanese administration — was not delivered.

In fact, American reception of Abe was at best lukewarm. This is because mainstream views in the U.S. do not support Japanese claims over the islands.

For example, Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times wrote last September: “On balance, I find the evidence for Chinese sovereignty quite compelling. The most interesting evidence is emerging from old Japanese government documents and suggests that Japan in effect stole the islands from China in 1895 as booty of war.”

Even the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a U.S. think tank critical of China, urged Abe to exercise restraint. On the eve of the PM's U.S. visit, AEI scholar Michael Auslin, in an open letter, urged him to undertake that “Japan will never fire the first shot, nor endanger civilian life.”

(...) [article here]